Traditionally, customers wishing to use a multi-point video conferencing service must reserve their conferences in advance. The customer must provide several parameters to complete such a reservation, including the number and types of terminals, line-speed, type of audio algorithm, start-time, end-time, video algorithm, type of network, along with other pertinent parameters. Providing these parameters presents a problem to both conference participants and service providers due to the fact that acquiring this information is difficult and providing this information makes the process of setting up or initiating a conference tedious and inconvenient. In addition, the customer must provide this information well in advance of the actual conference to reserve time and resources, and to allow adequate time to process the information and incorporate it into the conference setup.
Companies that provide video conferencing services typically use reservation-based systems to manage the service. Using such a service, a client contacts the service provider prior to the start of the conference to book or reserve the conference and any necessary facilities or resources. When making the reservation, the customer must provide the service operator with parameters, such as the number and types of terminals, line-speed, type of audio algorithm, start-time, end-time and other parameters. In response, the service operator must input these parameters into the reservations system.
FIG. 1, described in further detail later, is a block diagram illustrating a typical system architecture of an audio/video conferencing system.
Using a system as illustrated in FIG. 1, a service provider sets up an audio and/or video conference for a customer by completing the following tasks:                (1) A customer administrator 120 contacts, using a telephone, facsimile, e-mail or other means a service provider operator 112.        (2) The service provider operator 112 receives conference parameters from the customer administrator 120 and loads them into the reservation system via an operator console 116.        (3) The service provider operator 112 notifies the customer administrator 120 with a confirmation of the reserved conference details (the ISDN number(s) or network address such as IP address, URL, etc.) that will be used to connect to the conference).        (4) The customer administrator 120 provides the details of the conference, such as start-time and the number to call, to the participants or terminals 114 that will participate in the conference.        (5) The video conference is started on the service provider's MCU 110 at the reserved time and lasts for the pre-defined duration. During this time the conference terminals 114 can be connected to the conference.        (6) When the duration set for the conference is over, the conference is terminated and the terminals 114 are disconnected.        
For each customer that attempts to set up a conference call, each step in the process must be repeated.
These prior art techniques for reserving and initiating conferences are disadvantageous for several reasons. One reason is that the prior art techniques require a cumbersome reservation procedure. Also, if the actual duration of the conference is longer than the reserved time, the conference may terminate in the middle of a discussion. If the actual duration of the conference is shorter than the reserved time, the customer will end up paying for the unused time. Thus, there is a need in the art for a system and method to schedule and reserve audio and/or video conferences that allows more flexibility in the length of the conference.
Another disadvantage in the prior art techniques is that they do not allow any flexibility in the start-time of the conference and/or the number of participants in the conference. In today's complex world, conferences are often canceled at the last minute. Using the reservation techniques in the prior art, this lack of flexibility can be quite costly. Thus, there is a need in the art for a system and method to schedule and reserve audio and/or video conferences that allows more flexibility in the start time of the conference and the number of participants.
Yet another disadvantage of the prior art techniques is that they require extensive overhead to set up a conference. For instance, an operator is required on the service provider side and a conference administrator is required on the customer side. This overhead escalates the cost associated with providing audio and/or video conferencing services. Thus, there is a need in the art for a system and a method to schedule and reserve audio and/or video conferences that limits the amount of required overhead.
Furthermore, large companies are generally willing to have “virtual meeting rooms” in an audio/video conferencing system which can be scheduled and used by corporation's peers as conventional meeting rooms are used. Peers may reserve a virtual meeting room for a future meeting (audio/video conference) or may try to use an unreserved virtual meeting room for an impromptu meeting. Ordering a virtual meeting room may be done via a local server that resides in a corporate Intranet in a similar way that conventional meeting rooms are managed. Companies prefer to control and manage their virtual meeting rooms while outsourcing the conferencing resources from audio/video conferencing service provider. Other corporations may own and use their own MCU but still would like to manage and control the usage of the MCU by their own scheduling system, or scheduling server. These two types of corporations—the ones that outsources the conferencing resources and the ones that use their own conferencing resources—are referred to herein as third parties. Current conference technology lacks the capabilities of offering virtual meeting rooms that can be managed by one or more third parties that offer virtual meeting room to their peers.
Therefore, it is clear that there is a need in the art for system and method for providing reservation-based or reservationless audio and/or video conferences using virtual meeting rooms that can be managed and scheduled from an external sever that belongs to a third party which offers such services to its peers.